COUNTRY
WEDNESDAY, JULY 25, 2018
Serving Marine on St. Croix, Scandia, May Township
VOL. 35 NO. 13 www.countrymessenger.com $.75
ROAD CONSTRUCTION SEASON EXTENDED: Scandia City Council. PAGE 2
Sleepy village or destination? Marine reflects on future
Former Scandia fire chief dies
BY SUZANNE LINDGREN EDITOR@COUNTRYMESSENGER.COM
KYLE WEAVER
Ryley Finnegan, 8, bears his grandfather James Finnegan's ashes to an awaiting Scandia Fire & Rescue fire truck and a funeral procession of more than a dozen area fire department vehicles. James Finnegan, of St. Croix Falls, was laid to rest last week after an abridged battle with cancer. Finnegan served the City of Scandia as a firefighter for more than 17 years, including four years as Scandia Fire Chief; he later served the City of St. Croix Falls before retiring in 2016. He was 58. BY KYLE WEAVER CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Scandia Fire & Rescue has lost one of its own. James Finnegan, Scandia’s former fire chief and a 17-year retired veteran of the department, died July 12 following a brief battle with cancer. He was 58. Known for his matter-of-fact personality and his willingness
to roll up his sleeves, Finnegan joined Scandia Fire & Rescue in 1996. He was made an assistant chief in 1998 and succeeded Steve Spence as chief in 2009. “He was an active go-getter,” said Scandia Fire Chief Mike Hinz, who succeeded Finnegan as chief in 2013. “He didn’t wait to be asked. He asked if you needed help.” As Scandia’s fire chief, Finneg-
an put a lot of effort into getting area fire departments to work together and helped usher in a new era of shared trainings and mutual aid agreements, even with departments across state lines in Wisconsin. He was known to call neighboring fire chiefs directly, when he knew there was an incident, to
As cities across the United States ponder whether and how to manage short-term rentals made ubiquitous by tech platforms like Airbnb and VRBO, Marine’s plan commission could take up the matter as soon as next month. Although it’s not before the city council yet, Marine residents and council members discussed the concept at the council’s July 12 meeting. “There’s some stress in the town about bringing [short-term rentals] in,” said resident Ryan Marsel. “The previous question from a city council member was, do we want to be a sleepy little river town or bring people to our town and share it with them? My question is, how come we don’t know that? How come we haven’t identified who we want to be as a city so we can write comprehensive plans that reflect what we truly want rather than responding to one-off complaints from someone who just had an Airbnb next door, or had a bad experience individually?” Councilman Bill Miller responded, saying, “We did identify, and we coined a phrase, ‘low-impact SEE COUNCIL, PAGE 2
SEE FINNEGAN, PAGE 2
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Art complete on two utility boxes SUZANNE LINDGREN | COUNTRY MESSENGER
Story Time with Mayor Maefsky Scandia Mayor and goat farmer Christine Maefsky reads to kids gathered last Thursday for Marine Community Library’s story time. Maefsky also brought two kids (of the goat variety) from her farm to greet story time attendees.
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Two utility boxes have been transformed into works of public art, a project spearheaded by Fitzie Heimdahl of Marine. The box at the Hay Lake School Museum and Erickson Log Home in Scandia (pictured above) was painted by Betsey Hodson. The other, near the trail to the river in downtown Marine, was vinyl wrapped with a reproduction of a work by Tom Maakestad.
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